Bill for the protection of minors in digital environments
File 121/000052 · tabled on 27 March 2025
What it proposes
To protect minors in digital environments through changes to several laws. On the criminal side, the third final provision amends the CP on three fronts: it creates a new penalty barring access to, or communication through, social networks, forums, communication platforms or any other place in the virtual space; it makes the dissemination of sexual or seriously degrading deepfakes a specific offence in a new section 173 bis; and it aggravates several sexual offences against minors where the offender uses a false identity or claims an age, sex or other personal circumstances that are not their own. The first final provision extends the interim prohibitions in section 544 bis LECrim to the virtual space.
Parliamentary stage
- Current stage
- Justice Committee — rapporteurs’ report stage
- Checked on
- File number
- 121/000052
- Text as tabled
- Official gazette · file 121/000052
The stage shown is the one recorded in the Congress open data on the date indicated. A bill in progress is not law: until it is eventually published in the official state gazette, the text in force set out below applies.
What would change, section by section
On the left, the text in force checked against the consolidated version; on the right, what the tabled text says.
Art. 173 bis CP
Text in force
There is no specific offence. Depending on the facts, such conduct is currently brought under general offences, such as the offence against moral integrity in section 173.1 CP (six months to two years’ imprisonment for inflicting degrading treatment on another person that seriously harms their moral integrity).
Text as tabled
One to two years’ imprisonment for anyone who, without the consent of the person concerned and intending to harm their moral integrity, disseminates, exhibits or passes on that person’s bodily image or voice recording generated, altered or recreated by automated systems, software, algorithms, artificial intelligence or any other technology so that it appears real, simulating sexual or seriously degrading situations. One year and six months to two years where the victim is a minor or a person with a disability requiring special protection; the upper half of the range where the material is spread through the media, the internet or technologies that make it accessible to a large number of people. The courts would order the content to be removed, services mainly offering it to be interrupted, or both to be blocked where hosted abroad. Another bill in progress, file 122/000201 on conversion therapies, proposes a different section 173 bis in its tabled text.
Arts. 33, 39, 40.3, 48.4, 56.1, 70.3, 83.1, 96.3 CP
Text in force
No penalty or measure refers expressly to the virtual space. The prohibitions in section 48 CP are those on residing in or going to certain places, approaching the victim and communicating with the victim, the latter by any means of communication or any computer or telematic means. Electronic monitoring of these measures is currently provided for in section 48.4.
Text as tabled
A new penalty barring access to, or communication through, social networks, forums, communication platforms or any other place in the virtual space: serious for more than five years, less serious from six months to five years and minor from one month to less than six months (section 33), lasting from one month to ten years (section 40.3). It removes access to, or communication in, the virtual spaces directly related to the offence for the length of the sentence, and the decision must specify and give reasons for its scope (new section 48.4; electronic monitoring moves to section 48.5). It is also added as an ancillary penalty (section 56.1.4), as a condition of a suspended sentence (section 83.1, rule 8 bis) and as a non-custodial security measure (section 96.3, measure 7); in the penalty one degree higher its maximum length would be twenty years (section 70.3.6).
Arts. 39(b), 45, 56.1.3 CP
Text in force
Special disqualification covers a profession, trade, industry or business or other activities, whether paid or not, with no reference to the digital environment.
Text as tabled
The text specifies that special disqualification also covers activities carried on or exploited in virtual spaces, whether paid or not.
Art. 48.2 CP
Text in force
The restraining order prevents the offender from approaching the victim or other designated persons wherever they are, and from approaching their home, workplaces and any other place they frequent.
Text as tabled
The text adds that the ban on approaching their home, workplaces and other places they frequent applies even when they are not there.
Art. 57.1 CP
Text in force
The prohibitions in section 48 CP may be imposed in the judgment for homicide, abortion, injuries, offences against liberty, torture and offences against moral integrity, human trafficking, offences against sexual freedom and integrity, privacy, the right to one’s own image and the inviolability of the home, honour, property, the socio-economic order and family relationships.
Text as tabled
Offences committed in the exercise of fundamental rights and public freedoms are added to that list. The rest of the paragraph (a maximum of ten years for a serious offence and five for a less serious one) is unchanged.
Art. 183 CP
Text in force
Subsection 1 punishes contacting a child under sixteen by technological means to propose a meeting in order to commit the offences in sections 181 or 189 CP, accompanied by material acts aimed at bringing it about, with one to three years’ imprisonment or a twelve to twenty-four month fine, in the upper half where the approach is obtained through coercion, intimidation or deceit. Subsection 2 punishes luring a child into providing pornographic material with six months to two years’ imprisonment, with no specific aggravation.
Text as tabled
The basic penalties are unchanged. In subsection 1, the upper half would also apply where the approach is obtained by using a false, fictitious or imaginary identity or by the offender claiming an age, sex or other personal circumstances different from their own. Subsection 2 gains the same aggravation (upper half) where the luring is carried out in that way.
Arts. 181.5, 182, 185, 186, 188.1, 188.4, 189.3 CP
Text in force
None of these provisions increases the penalty for using a false identity. Section 186 punishes selling, distributing or exhibiting pornographic material among minors or persons with a disability requiring special protection “by any direct means”, and section 189.3 only provides for the penalty one degree higher where violence or intimidation is used.
Text as tabled
All of them gain an aggravating factor where the offender, to facilitate the offence, used a false, fictitious or imaginary identity or claimed an age, sex or other personal circumstances different from their own: a new letter (i) in section 181.5, a new subsection 3 in section 182 and a final paragraph in sections 185, 186, 188.1 and 188.4, with the penalty in the upper half of the range; in section 189.3 it becomes letter (b), also with the penalty in the upper half. Section 186 is also rewritten to punish anyone who knowingly and by any means sells, distributes, exhibits or makes such material available.
Art. 544 bis LECrim
Text in force
In investigations into the offences listed in section 57 CP, the judge may impose, as an interim measure, a ban on residing in a particular place, on going to particular places, districts, municipalities, provinces or other local entities or autonomous communities, or on approaching or communicating with particular persons, as appropriate, where strictly necessary to protect the victim or prevent reoffending.
Text as tabled
The ban on going to particular places would cover places “both physical and virtual”, and the ban on approaching or communicating could be ordered in respect of any means, including social networks, forums, communication platforms or any other place in the virtual space. In its first paragraph the tabled text reproduces the earlier wording, without the words “or prevent reoffending” found in the current version.
Who it affects
Anyone who disseminates realistic sexual or degrading fakes generated with artificial intelligence or other technology, people under investigation for sexual offences against minors committed by digital means, and any convicted person who could receive the new ban on accessing social networks and other virtual spaces. Also victims, who currently have to fit deepfakes into general offences.
Related pages
Source: the text published in the official parliamentary gazette and the Congress of Deputies open data on legislative initiatives. Informational content; it does not replace the study of a specific case.
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